


Mushrooms are Eating my Mind

by Pearly_Ashes



Series: Mushrooms and Magic [1]
Category: Hermitcraft RPF, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Corruption, Gen, Mycelium, the mycelium resistance - Freeform, the shopping district
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-02
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:54:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27353806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearly_Ashes/pseuds/Pearly_Ashes
Summary: The mycelium resistance learns too late what they have accidentally unleashed.
Series: Mushrooms and Magic [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997731
Comments: 25
Kudos: 71





	1. Prologue (or epilogue, if you’re unlucky)

It was probably for the best that the mycelium resistance headquarters were so hard to find, and meetings were usually prearranged. Otherwise, someone might have walked in and noticed something...strange about the figure hunched up in one of the chairs. The red sweater was familiar enough to anyone who knew Grian, but that wasn’t the unnerving part of the scene.

The first oddity was how still the figure was. At first glance, he might have seemed to be asleep. The chest was rising and falling so slowly as to be unnoticeable, but the slightly parted lips suggested heavier breathing than the truth. The head was slumped forward, just enough for hair to obscure the eyes. One hand was laid upon a knee, the other lolling loose off the side of the chair, fingers shaking just the slightest bit.

On a second glance, one might notice that the whole figure was shaking, just the smallest amount, only clear if you were looking for it. And if you stayed for a long enough time you might even see the whole figure twitch, just a bit.

And on a third look, if you were brave enough to walk up and brush aside the hair, you would see the eyes. Half closed, but not enough to hide the weblike veins of pale purple that pulsed ever so slightly. If that wasn’t enough to dissuade you, and you lifted one of the cold hands, you might find the web there too, slightly sticky and weaving in and out of skin.

By this point you hopefully would have run. I’d hate to see what would happen if you didn’t leave very, very, soon.


	2. Well Hello There

The mycelium resistance had started mostly as a joke. After all, Grian, the founder of the whole thing, had voted for Scar. He’d supported him in his efforts to beautify the shopping district. Sure, he hadn’t been directly involved, but he was one of many who was both shocked and pleased when Scar surprised everyone by swapping out all the spongy, sticky spores on the ground for lush green grass basically overnight. A politician who kept his campaign promises. Who would have thought?

But it turned out that after the mayoral race things were rather boring. Grian in particular found himself spending a lot of time wandering through the shopping district, not really going anywhere, just wishing something interesting would happen. Sure, he had a base to build, and he went to visit Grumbot often enough, but the campaign for Mumbo had taken a lot of his time, and now that it was over he just had a bit more free time.

At the moment though, he was busy, stocking the barge with the absolutely painful amount of sand and gravel that seemed to be bought out every time he turned his back. It took several long dull flights laden down with shulker boxes to restock each item, even with nether portals, and Grian found his mind wandering more and more as he flew over the freshly relandscaped shopping district. It was much prettier, he couldn’t lie there, but he did miss the mycelium, in an odd way. It was pretty much gone now though, he thought, swooping through the hole in the roof of the barge for the fifth time that hour. 

He tossed the shulker down with a bit less care than was prudent, mind wandering to the mushroom carpet that had so recently covered the ground. Was there any left, he wondered? Might be a nice niche item to sell at the barge if he could find some. Mooshroom islands were quite rare after all, and mycelium was one of those blocks you never thought you’d need, and certainly wouldn’t have lying around in a chest, until you were placing it down. 

With this new idea in mind, he dumped the last load of gravel into the chest before taking flight, ignoring the ache that came of wearing elytra just a little too long. Magic they might be, but they still made the shoulders ache after flying back and forth all day. It wasn’t too bad anyway, and certainly nothing that would ground him.

At least that's what he thought, until he had spent an hour gliding over the shopping district, eyes combing the land below in vain for any sign of the purple spores. His shoulders were really starting to hurt, and he’d been over the whole place very thoroughly at least twice by then, so he angled toward the town hall, coming to rest in front of the communal nether portal, still surrounded by posters from the campaigns so recently concluded. He chuckled at them as he pulled off his elytra, stowing it away in his inventory and changing it out for a shovel as he leaned back and forth a bit, getting the feeling back into his legs.

Then he turned, walked around to the side of the hall, and dug straight down. A bad idea at most times, but the fact that he had helped construct the cliff and the building atop it meant he was fairly confident he knew where the waterline started. 

Fairly being the operative word he thought, wincing as his boots hit the spongy ground below, at least three blocks from the waterline. Thank Void for feather falling. He attempted to step forward, glancing down at his feet when he met resistance to see that the netherite had sunk into the spore laced dirt beneath them, enough that the tiny mushroom caps themselves were starting to brush against the calf of his boots. 

Grian made a face as he braced himself and pulled hard at his left leg, wrinkling his nose at the squelching noise it made as it was pulled free. The other came with less of a fight, and soon he was standing unhindered in the little shaft of light that came from the hole, fifteen or so blocks above him. The rest of the underground area was lit dimly by flickering torches, with the occasional moan of a zombie or rattle of a skeleton in the distance to prove that it wasn’t quite lit up enough to deter the undead monsters.

Grian, after giving a cursory glance to the immediate area and finding it clear, elected to ignore them in favor of putting his shovel to good use, scooping up all the mycelium he could carry into his mostly empty inventory. There was a lot of ground to cover down there, and he shaved off at least six stacks of mycelium before an arrow fired from somewhere in the darkness decided for him that this adventure was over. 

He left quite promptly after that, only really pausing to rifle through his inventory for a rocket and zipping out the hole he had left with arrows still flying past. “Rude!” He called down before putting the dirt block back where it belonged.

A head poked over the edge of the balcony of town hall. “G? Who are you talking to?”

Grian jumped slightly, squinting up toward where the voice had come from. “Oh! Hi Scar. Just a skeleton, he didn’t want me in his cave I guess. Turns out we left a bit of a mob problem down there when we built this place.

“Ohhh yeah.” Scar nodded “ I hear them down there sometimes, but I’ve kind of just been ignoring them. I haven’t been under there since we built it, it’s a bit scary actually! What were you doing down there anyway?

Grian hesitated. He wasn’t sure why, there was nothing wrong with gathering a relatively rare block to sell in a shop. People did it all the time. But for some reason he didn’t want to tell Scar what he had been up to, and his hand unconsciously slipped into his inventory, curling around the miniaturized blocks protectively.

“Just….looking around.”

Scar looked at him for a few moments, and Grian held his gaze, trying hard to hold still and ignore the way his heartbeat sped up.

Then Scar shrugged “Weird place to hang out, but we don’t judge here. Just be careful down there! If you die and count me on to get your stuff I’m pretty sure we’ll just both end up with a lot of lost items.”

Grian chuckled, relaxing a bit as he stretched his elytra wings out behind him in preparation to take off. “You got it. I’ll be careful. See you later!” 

Scar’s reply was lost to the sound of rockets, but Grian didn’t stop, firing off several more rockets than were strictly necessary to get back to the barge, considering its proximity to town hall.

Of course, that was when he realized he didn’t actually have a spot prepared for the mycelium. Oh well. There was always tomorrow, he’d just hold onto it for now.


	3. The Better Block

Grian woke up cold. Not all that unusual, he did live in the mountains, but usually the thick blanket of the bed he kept in the lower hall of his mansion kept the chill out a bit better. Unfortunately, it would appear his sleeping self had gotten tired of that particular piece of bedding, as it was now tangled into a ball and thrown onto the floor in a heap. He grumbled into his pillow for a few moments before sighing and sitting up, reaching for his sweater. He grimaced when he felt his hand slide across something, something slightly clingy that definitely should not have been on that article of clothing. 

He blinked at it for a few moments before he found the source. From the front pockets, where his inventory was stored, something was poking out, tiny little tendrils that wound though and in between the fibers.

“What..?” He mumbled, still half asleep as he pulled the sweater over to himself. He blinked sleepily at it for a few moments before shrugging and pulling it on to reach into his inventory, only to find that most of the things inside had the same feel as the sweater did: little raised ridges running all along them, just a little bit gummy and cold. 

He almost left it behind, then thought about maybe washing it before he left for the day, but a glance out of the huge archway told him he was running late already, and whatever the stuff was didn’t seem to have negatively affected any of his items at least, so he shoved it out of his mind as much as possible and jumped into his usual morning routine, doing his best to ignore the occasional shivery feeling whenever his skin happened to brush up near the pocket.

The barge still needed some things stocked, so it was actually a few hours before he left, trading with the villagers well into the afternoon. When Grian finally flew out the door, he was laden down with shulker boxes worth of materials and a few bits of wood and basic building things. He still wanted to make a display for the mycelium after all, and it would be very unlike him not to make it match the rest of the barge.

Restocking went quickly for the most part, and he was moving onto his new stock by the time the sun had really begun to sink toward the horizon. There was a nook in the middle of the left side of the barge that was mostly unused at the moment, so he put a small shelf in place and plopped a chest on top, throwing most of the mycelium in without a second thought. He did hold onto about half a stack though. He’d need to make more of it after all, even if it didn’t sell especially well it was good to keep up appearances.

He worried his tongue between his teeth for a moment as he thought about pricing. What was it worth? Or rather, what could the price be at that people would still buy, but that would make however much time he needed to get it worth it? Who even bought mycelium? He pulled out a block and turned it over. It was a rather nice color, now that he looked at it. A soft purple… Still squishy, but it didn’t bother him as much as it had before. Getting used to it he supposed.

Grian looked outside and frowned. Why had they replaced the mycelium with grass in the first place? Mycelium was a great block! In fact…

He snagged a stack from the box and marched outside, looking around for other hermits. None seemed to be around, even the town hall was silent, with Scar and his associates presumably out working on personal projects.

Good.

A little mycelium here, a little there, a little dirt laid down to let it spread.

_ “Perfect”  _ Grian thought. “ _ Perfect” _ He smiled, packing up his things and taking one last flight around the shopping district to look at the improvements he had made, before turning sharply and soaring toward the jungle.

He went home, tired but pleased, and collapsed right into bed, not even bothering to take off his sweater before falling into a deep sleep.


	4. Overslept

_ Beep! _

...what was that?

_ Beep! _

“ _ Shut up… _ ”

_ Beep! _

Grian’s eyes flew open, an annoyed grumble escaping him as he reached for his communicator. The little reddish light on the top was blinking wildly, indicating new messages. Who was trying to contact him in the middle of the night?

“This better be important…” he muttered, getting to his feet a bit unsteadily. He felt exhausted.

_ Beep! _

He frowned as he finally looked down at the screen. 

_ Mumbo Jumbo: Has anyone seen Grian?  _

_ Mumbo Jumbo: I can’t find him anywhere. _

_ Xisuma: Did you check the barge? He’s been restocking the last few days. _

_ Scar: I haven’t seen him since yesterday, he was flying all over the place. _

_ Mumbo Jumbo: Grian? Are you there? _

_ Iskall85: He might have just overslept.  _

_ Mumbo Jumbo: True. _

_ Mumbo Jumbo: Alright, it’s after 3, I’m going to check on him. _

_ Xisuma: Good idea. _

_ Xisuma: Let me know if anything’s wrong. _

_ Mumbo Jumbo: Grian? Hello? I’m coming to your base. _

_ Mumbo Jumbo: He’s not here. I’ll try his hobbit hole. _

Grian blinked, confused. He was in his base….oh. 

He wasn’t though. No wonder he had overslept, he was in the tunnel under his hobbit hole. The flickering light of the lanterns wasn’t even close to the sunlight that he was used to. Still, sleeping until 3:00 was pretty bad, even with that excuse.Speaking of, he should probably tell everyone where he was so they wouldn’t worry. 

The sound of a door opening told him not to bother though, as he heard footsteps into the rooms above him.

“Grian?” That was Mumbo. He sounded out of breath. Grian wondered how long he’d been looking. “Are you here?” He sounded worried too. Grian wondered how long he’d keep looking if he didn’t say anything.

Then he blinked. Why would he do that? He shook his head sharply.

“I’m down here Mumbo!” he called.”Hang on, I’m coming up.” He turned and grabbed the bed he had apparently left down here so long ago, and hurried toward the entrance to the tunnel.

Mumbo was already waiting at the top of the tunnel. “Grian! What..? Why were you down there? What have you been doing all day? Are you okay?”

Grian paused, processing the flood of questions. He could see Mumbo was far from done though, so he rushed to reply before his friend could ask any more. “I’m sorry I didn’t see any of the messages. I was sleeping, I must have come here by accident last night, I was really tired-“

Mumbo paused him, holding up a hand. “It’s okay Grian. You clearly aren’t feeling alright. Just let someone know next time, that way we don’t worry. As much, at least” He looked Grian up and down and frowned. “Honestly, you look like you should go back to bed. And what’s that?”

Grain stared at him, feeling like he was pushing his brain through honey to try and think. “What?”

“That stuff on your sweater.”

Grian looked down. “Oh.” The gummy tendrils that had been there yesterday were still there. In fact, they seemed to have extended their reach, curling throughout the fabric all the way up the front and beginning to explore the edges of the sleeves as well. He shrugged tiredly. Then he tensed slightly. If Mumbo thought it was dangerous, he might….well he didn’t know actually. Maybe he would take it away. That would be bad, right? It seemed bad. But why? No, it didn’t matter why. That would be bad, that was what mattered.

Mumbo gave a small cough and Grian jolted back, stumbling and nearly falling over before he caught himself on the wall.

“M okay. “ he mumbled.

“No you very much are not. Are you sick?”

“Maybe”

Mumbo frowned. “Do you want me to get you a teleport to your base from X?”

Grian shook his head. “I’ll be okay. I think I just need some rest.”

“If you say so. Just try not to go off the radar for so long, everyone worries.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll leave you be then. Get some sleep, no offense mate but you look awful.”

“Yeah… okay.” Grian mumbled, turning back toward the tunnel he had come from.

Mumbo didn’t move until he was at the bottom of the steps. “I’ll see you later then. But if you disappear like that again I’m totally getting X to find you next time.”

A small mumble from Grian was the only reply he got before his figure disappeared into the underground again.

Mumbo shook his head as he walked out the door. “I hope he’s alright…”


	5. Help Wanted

When Gran next opened his eyes, the little light that managed to filter all the way through his hobbit hole and into the tunnel beneath during the day had faded, and the occasional rattle or groan from outside told him that night had fallen some time ago.

For a moment, he considered rolling right over and going back to sleep for the second time in twenty four hours. But the heavy feeling that had been there earlier had gone away somewhat, and it wasn’t as hard as he would have thought to drag himself out of bed and up the tunnel, shivering slightly in the chill of the unheated structure.

But he wasn’t tired anymore, and middle of the night or not he had things to do. Shopping district things. 

The flight seemed longer than usual, or maybe that was just because of how cold Grian was. He considered stopping by his base to get a blanket or something, but dismissed the thought. There was probably one at the barge, and even if there wasn’t, he was running late anyway. Running late? For what? 

What was he doing again? He drifted slowly into the barge, too concentrated on his thoughts to perform his usual confident dive, landing with a slight stumble in front of his new mycelium display.

Oh! Of course, that was what he was doing. The mycelium needed to spread. It was the natural block after all. And it was so pretty.

But there was a lot of the shopping district still left to cover. Not to mention, he thought he had seen something on his way in.

He shook his head slightly as he walked out the door, not entirely trusting himself to fly very well at the moment. He stopped when he saw it, fists clenched and face twisting in anger.

Someone had removed it. They had taken some of the mycelium.  _ How dare they _ . And then they had had the nerve to put some kind of-of safety line in place around the rest. 

He ripped it down without a second thought. How dare they?! This was his shop, his grounds, no less, he could do what he liked here! He hadn’t asked for grass!

_ “But you did” _ something in his mind whispered, and he stopped. “You  _ voted for him” _

No, no, that wasn’t right. Was it? Why didn’t he remember?

_ “You don’t need to.”  _ That was the right voice. Or was that the newer one? Everything felt all fuzzy. Maybe he should get some help…

Help….what for? 

Help with the mycelium? That seemed right. It was too big of a job for him, he needed to get other people on board. Somehow. The fuzziness in his brain faded away, and he breathed a sigh of relief. He was just tired, he knew it.

Now, how was he going to get people to join? He could just ask. But something made him hesitate. What if he asked someone who was a supporter of the grass by accident?

There needed to be some kind of test. Or at least a way to tell they liked mycelium. 

Those grass lovers would certainly never buy the block, right? He could just use the display he had made! It was perfect.

He glanced up at the sky. The moon was almost directly above him. If he hurried, he could have this done before morning. That would be ideal, especially since Scar and Bdubs usually arrived at the town hall not long after the sun was up.

He settled on an idea pretty quickly, hooking up the simplest redstone contraption he could think of to take the diamonds paid for mycelium and use them to open a piston door beneath where any customers would likely be standing. It took a frustratingly long time to make it work, and he considered checking to see if any other, more redstone oriented hermits were awake, but he dismissed the thought quickly. He didn’t know where their loyalties might lie after all.

Better to wait and see.

The digging out of the base went fairly quickly, except for a slight flooding issue when he absentmindedly broke one of the blocks directly under the lake below the barge. It was a pleasant surprise when he realized that there was some mycelium down there too, tucked away in the darkness and growing just fine. He smiled when he saw it. This was the way it should be. Not just down in the caves, but up above. It shouldn’t be hidden.

Soon it wouldn’t have to be.

By the time he was done hollowing out the rest of the interconnected rooms, the mycelium had begun to spread its thin tendrils over the rest of the dirt he had laid down, and the place was looking much more homely already, several chairs laid out around a table, and some lanterns tucked away on natural looking shelves to shed some light. Not too many, just enough to keep the mobs away. Grian had had a bit of a headache when the light was too bright.

He sighed as he set down his shovel, feeling exhaustion tugging at him again as he sat down in one of the dimmer corners and leaned against the wall that gradually molded slightly to him, letting him lean back into it. Not a bad night’s work at all. A short nap wouldn’t hurt, he’d hear the piston go off if someone came down anyways.

As his eyes drifted shut, he thought vaguely that he should maybe let Mumbo know not to worry about him. 

No. He’d be fine.

Now, it was just time to sleep.


End file.
